Representative photo
Geneva: UN human rights experts today urged China to immediately release imprisoned citizen journalist and woman human rights defender Zhang Zhan on “humanitarian grounds”. The independent experts, appointed by the Human Rights Council, are in contact with the Chinese authorities on the matter.
Zhan has been detained in Pudong New District Detention Centre in Shanghai since May 2020. She has been serving a four-year sentence on charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”. She was arrested after she posted a video criticizing the Government’s handling of the outbreak of COVID-19 and was accused of spreading false information and stirring up negative sentiment about the epidemic in Wuhan.
She was convicted and sentenced in December 2020. However, since her arrest she had gone on full and partial hunger strike in protest against her detention. In late July 2021, she was admitted to a prison hospital for 11 days due to her health condition, during which time she was reportedly tied to the hospital bed and subjected to forced feeding. Her health is fast deteriorating and there are serious concerns for her life if she does not immediately receive adequate medical treatment.
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Claiming that her health was deteriorating rapidly and her life was in danger, UN rights experts warned today that failure by China to release her could have “fatal consequences for Zhang Zhan”.
They called upon the Chinese authorities to immediately grant her unconditional release and ensure she receives the necessary medical treatment as soon as possible.
The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention deemed Zhan’s detention arbitrary in October 2021, and called for her immediate release.
“The arrest and detention of Zhang Zhan and a number of other citizen journalists for reporting on the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, a matter of vital public interest, is deeply troubling,” the experts said.
– global bihari bureau
